


and in the sun, there's room for you

by bluewritessometimes



Category: The Mechanisms (Band)
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Autistic Nastya Rasputina, Gen, Post-Story: Out (The Mechanisms), Semi-Graphic Depictions of Dying, Temporary Character Death, again. nastya dying repeatedly, but definitely the Start Of Things Being Fixed, i love that theres a tag for that, like nothing suuuper explicit but nastya does like. die repeatedly, not 100 percent a fix it, not explicitly stated but like. im projecting my Entire Autistic Experience onto her, oh huh ao3 doesnt allow percents signs in tags. weird
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-05
Updated: 2021-01-05
Packaged: 2021-03-15 11:14:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,320
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28562622
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluewritessometimes/pseuds/bluewritessometimes
Summary: nastya floats through space for a long, long time. and she is very, very alone.until one day she floats into a sun, and into a very familiar drumbot.
Relationships: Drumbot Brian & Nastya Rasputina
Comments: 4
Kudos: 24
Collections: The Mechscord Winter Gift Exchange





	and in the sun, there's room for you

**Author's Note:**

  * For [i_am_made_of_memoriies](https://archiveofourown.org/users/i_am_made_of_memoriies/gifts).



> written for the mechscord gift exchange!! i decided to combine the "brian and nastya bonding" & "Out fix-it" prompts because i couldn't get the idea of brian & nastya talking in the sun out of my head lmao.
> 
> if anyone's confused about timeline shenanigans: the timeline i'm working with is roughly "nastya went Out while brian was still on fort galfridan, and the station fell into the sun while she was vibing in space." i have no idea if this fits the actual canon timeline but it's not *not* canon so no one can tell me im wrong. /hj
> 
> cws!: descriptions of dying [again, not suuper graphic but there sure is a lot of it], mild body horror [being in the sun Does Some Things to you], discussion of Out-related things such as the ship of theseus problem, one (1) line of fleshrora

The void is very, very cold. 

Nastya was able to ignore it for the first couple of decades, but at some point between year ten and year thirty it'd become almost impossible to bear. Her blood kept freezing and she kept dying and coming back and then she would slowly freeze to death again. 

It wasn't a fun time. 

To be completely honest- not that there was anyone to be honest with, now- going Out had been a split-second decision that she probably should have thought about some more before actually doing it. But by the time she'd realized _oh, maybe I should think about this a little more_ she'd already explained her plan to Jonny, and backing out would have caused even more problems and probably lead to her getting therapy from Marius. 

There were probably easier ways to avoid therapy, now that she thought about it. 

And what did she even think was going to happen when she left? She wouldn't die. She couldn't die. Would she float forever? Would she just come back in a century or so and pretend it was all an overdramatic meltdown and that she was fine now? 

...It wasn't an overdramatic meltdown.  
Aurora was gone. She was sure of that. 

_And Aurora was the only reason you stayed with the crew?_ whispered a small voice in her head. _You didn’t care about your crewmates at all?_

_Shut up, she told the voice._

She floated on.

This kind of cycle- die and wake up, contemplate her poor decisions, die again- continued for ages. Nastya couldn’t tell how long, because it was hard to keep time while floating through an endless void, but her internal clock told her around 100-300 years. Which wasn’t long, in the grand scheme of things. Jonny had spent longer getting a drink on some planets. But she never left for that long. At most she’d go planetside for twenty years or so and check on her crewmates, but even that was rare. She just never wanted to leave Aurora for long.

...Which she supposed she didn’t really care about, anymore. 

Anyway. The cycle continued.

But all things must end, and one day her drifting ended as well. 

When Nastya regenerated, it was very… different. From what she had been experiencing before. It was hard for her to tell which sensations were different, because everything was so much, but after a while she was able to sort the all the input into the usual boxes.

For starters, it was hot. Really hot. If she had been constantly and slowly dying of frozen blood before, she was now very close to quickly dying of her blood literally boiling. 

And it was really bright. And loud. And the brightness was making the loudness about ten times worse and the loudness was making the brightness about ten times worse, which wasn’t fun and was making it very hard to actually understand why it was so bright and loud. 

She shut her eyes, which helped a bit. It was still loud, and the brightness was still there, but it did help make everything slightly less intense. 

But still. It was a lot.

Nastya tried to breathe- _nope, bad idea, wherever she was did not have breathable air-_ she tries to relax her limbs a bit, which is still hard because of her rapidly evaporating blood, but she tries. 

It doesn’t help.

It is loud, and bright, and hot, and she hates this and she can’t get out. 

And then she dies.

She dies a lot, repeatedly, and very quickly. Again, time is hard to track in a place like this, but she guesses it takes her about two hours to regenerate, then she’s conscious for another four minutes at most before she burns to a crisp and dies again.

At least she doesn’t really have enough time to contemplate her bad decisions while being repeatedly boiled alive. Small blessings or whatever. But it still really fucking hurts, and she can’t help but remind herself that she probably wouldn’t be in this situation if she hadn’t gone Out in the first place. Whatever “this situation” is. She’s concluded it’s most likely a burning planet or a medium-sized star, although knowing some of the shit the crew’s described seeing to her it could be pretty much anything. Not that knowing where she is would help anything. 

She continues to burn. 

Until she doesn’t. One day (or night, she supposes, it’s hard to tell) she just doesn’t burn. 

The heat is still pulling at her blood and there’s still so much pressure and noise, but it seems… lesser. Somehow. Like all the input has been turned down like volume on a television, and she’s finally able to focus on her thoughts for the first time in what feels like forever.

After a while watching her skin slowly slide off her arm, she realizes what is happening. She’s fallen victim to something the crew usually referred to as Narrative Convenience. It’s only happened to her a couple times, much less than the rest of the crew, but it still happens. The last time she’d seen it happen…. well. It was probably when Jonny noticed her going Out and was able to make it down to the airlock before she left.

Huh.

But that’s not the point right now. The point is that she hasn’t died yet, which is a problem, because it means that something interesting is about to happen. And she hates being in the middle of Something Interesting. The others may have stopped caring, but Nastya refuses to let her life become a fucking story. 

There’s no point fighting it, though. If anything that just brings you closer to whatever story the Narrative is pushing you towards, like when-

“Nastya?”

Ah. There’s the Narrative. 

Nastya up from her arm and sees a silhouette she knows well, even if it’s been partially distorted by melting and rust. “Brian.”

“Nastya?” he repeats. His voice is heavy with static, but she can still mostly make out what he’s saying. “Has- have you come to get me out?”

Nastya sees no reason to lie. “No, Brian. I’m sorry.”

“B-but- you must have gotten here somehow-” Brian’s eyes squeak as he tries to look around. “Where’s everyone else, Nastya? Where’s Aurora?”

Nastya takes in a breath- she can do that now, it seems. At least the Narrative is good for something. “Aurora is dead, Brian.”

“Dead? Dead, I- what happened? Are her engines broken? I can fix her engines, Nastya, if she’s broken I can fix her-”

“She’s definitely broken. But I can’t think of how you could fix that.”

“Nas-” He breaks off and starts coughing, although it sounds more like a radio struggling to find a signal than any human sound. “Stop being cryptic, Nastya. What’s wrong with Aurora? She can’t just die, unless you’ve been taking even worse care of her than I thought while I was gone.”

“She can die, it seems. It’s just- Aurora, she’s had to have parts of her replaced so many times, right? She’s- none of her parts are the original parts anymore. Except for-” She starts to show him the part of hull that she’s holding, until she realizes- it’s gone. Most likely melted in the sun, although it’s possible she let go of it while floating through space and didn’t notice. She can’t quite remember the last time she was holding it- she had it when she left, and the first couple of death cycles afterwards, but she can’t remember beyond that-

And then it hits her. The last piece of Aurora is gone, and it doesn’t matter where, because it’s unlikely she’s ever going to get it back. She’s lost every part of Aurora now, and it’s her own fault for letting go of the last piece. 

She starts to cry.

“Nastya? Nastya, I- what happened?” Brian tries to put an arm around her, although he isn’t very successful because metal arms plus a hot sun does not make for a very nice hug. “Nastya? I thought you wanted to fix up Aurora? She’s always complaining about how much her rustier bits hurt…”

Nastya does not want to explain. She can’t. She wasn’t in the mood for talking when she first saw Brian and she certainly isn’t in the mood now. So she just wraps her arms around herself and cries.

Brian gets the message, and floats quietly until she finishes. Crying isn’t a very fun experience when the temperature is over a hundred degrees, so Nastya holds her sleeve to her eyes to stop the tears. 

Finally she manages to get out, “I hadn’t… considered what would happened. All of her has been replaced, Brian, and that includes her brain, and her nerve sensors, and her memory… she doesn’t even speak Cyberian anymore. Not really. She’s…. she’s just not the Aurora I fell in love with.”

Brian is quiet. “Oh.” 

“Yeah. Oh.”

“So… what does this have to do with you being in the sun?”

“I went Out,” Nastya says simply. “Aurora is gone. So I left too.”

“You just… you what, threw yourself into space because you broke up with your girlfriend?”

“Yes.”

“And… do you plan to go back, or…?”

“No. No reason to, now that Aurora’s gone. I was going to- I was going to take the last piece of her that was still her with me, but I.... lost it.”

“...I see.” Brian shifts uncomfortably. “Um. And the rest of the crew?”

“What about them? They didn’t believe that Aurora had changed, if that’s what you mean.”

“No, just- wouldn’t you have stayed for them? You and Jonny are practically siblings, it just- it seems out of character for you to just leave him like that.”

 _Yes,_ she wants to say. _Yes, it was a terrible decision, and I miss Jonny, and Aurora, and maybe I should have thought this whole thing through a little more because Aurora being gone was bad but being lost in the void of space is far, far worse._

What she says is, “People change.”

“I really, really want to point out the irony in that statement, but I feel like that would be insensitive.” 

Nastya pauses. “I- okay. You have a point there.” 

“On a more serious note, Nastya…. do you think that just because parts of Aurora have been replaced, she’s a completely different spaceship?”

“Of course. You replace enough parts of someone, they become a different person. ‘s not always bad, it’s just how it is.”

Brian is quiet. “...Nastya… you know that I have to replace my joints every couple of centuries, right? And sometimes entire limbs?”

“‘Course. Don’t see how that rela- oh.”

“I…. I’ve wondered about that myself, you know. I mean… I don’t even have the memories of my old life. I have my heart, but even then- it’s just a muscle. Just flesh. Hardly a way to determine who you are as a person. And I- if I had a family in my old life. How do I know I’m still the same person who was in that family? Because I have their heart? That’s like saying that if someone took Jonny’s old heart they’d be the same person who killed his father.” Brian sighs. “It’s just, if I’m not really the person who had that family…. What happened to them?”

Nastya is silent. “Brian I- I didn’t mean to suggest that you’re not the same person, I just- it’s different. With Aurora it’s different.”

“Different how? Aurora arguably has more memories of her life before the crew than I do, and definitely has more flesh, unless more has changed than I thought.”

“I- I don’t know! It just feels different!” Nastya is starting to get frustrated. “Why are you so calm about all of this, anyway?”

Brian shrugs. “I could yell at you if you’d prefer.”

“No. No, I guess… I’m just. Confused? Everything is so... confusing now.” Nastya fidgets with the clasp on her coat. “I guess… I guess it’s just easier for me if I think in black and white. Aurora’s either Aurora or she’s not. You’re either the person you used to be or you’re not. I’m either Out or I’m In. I’m not- it’s not like I’m afraid of nuance, it’s just easier to simplify things, you know?”

“You’re talking to someone who literally switches between two different rather black-and-white moral codes.”

“Oh. Yeah, that’s a fair point.”

“So I get it, Nastya. It’s hard. It’s easier to think in black and white- hell, it’s easier to just ignore it. But that leads to… bad decisions.” He laughs. “It leads to you accidentally making a whole space station fall into the sun because you didn’t explain to the sheriff that is son is trans.”

“Yeah, that- wait, what?”

“It’s a long story.”

“Sounds like it.”

“Jonny’ll probably love it, though.” Brian looks around, as if he’s just remembering where he is. “If he ever gets me out of this fucking sun.”

“Oh. Yeah, uh. Sorry that we didn’t check on you sooner.”

Brian shrugs. “‘s fine. I’ve been through worse. With the whole, you know. Lost in the cosmos thing.”

“I mean, it still can’t feel good.”

“No, it doesn’t. Feels pretty shitty, actually. But he’ll start getting attention-starved soon enough and need to come and get me, so. It’s fine.” Brian holds up his hand, watching the brass dripping down like candle wax with mild fascination. “When he does come up pick me up…. will you come with us? Go back to the Aurora?”

Nastya honestly hadn’t considered this.

“I mean, it’s certainly better than being stuck in the sun forever.”

“Is that a yes, then?”

“It’s not a no,” Nastya replies. 

“Not a no.” Brian smiles. “That’s good, I think.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I think so too.”

Nastya takes Brian’s hand, and they slowly burn together.

**Author's Note:**

> look. if the mechs get to excuse weird narrative choices with "the narrative did it" then so can i
> 
> anyways GOD this was fun to write! brian & nastya,,, they r friends,,,, also it turns out i really like describing death. i am. not sure why.
> 
> uhh all the usual end note stuff! comment if you want it makes me go :D, i'm on tumblr @stimtoysolider, & listen to hadestown its really fuckn good


End file.
